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dr-futbol-blog · 5 days ago

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Grace Under Pressure, Pt. 7

Meanwhile, McKay has managed to to get his creeping hypoxia problem under control, leaning back to breathe in and to take solace in this small victory. Although it has done little to change the over-all trajectory of his current predicament, he does look almost like blissed out for a moment. Here, he is also just describing his environment and not using any discernible person, seeming to just mechanistically make record of the data as it occurs to him.

McKay: CO2 scrubbers operating at... one hundred percent. Well, at least something is.

Allowing himself only the briefest of respites McKay gets right back to work trying to solve the problem and having had only a short moment to calm down, he seems to dissociate less, talking in the first person and talking out loud just to workshop the problem rather than to talk to himself for the sake of talking. Now, McKay complains that he can barely see the read-outs on his device and given that we have never seen him wear eye-glasses (other than the protective kind) or seem to suffer from myopia of any kind, it is possible that it is his head injury that is making it difficult for him to focus on reading the numbers and code.

This is also the only time that he seems to have this problem (the McKay from the alternate reality of The Road Not Taken that had been married to Carter had glasses but this is not our McKay from a different timeline, this is an alternate reality version who is, among other differences, interested in women; regardless, this may be a subtle reference to a different world where he had needed glasses, where he had loved a woman and where Gen. Landry had become a fascist dictator, and a nod to the fact that we need to remember the differences between these two men when "Carter" soon makes an appearance), and he seems to have designed the interface for integrating human and Ancient technology himself so while he may want to push the blame on "they" here, he really only has himself to blame.

Regardless, with the head injury, lack of light, and creeping hysteria, his focus on numbers may not be the sharpest it has ever been. Given that he looks at his hands, it may not even be a problem just with his eyes here but the cold making his hands too stiff to work the device. Not being able to work the device is nonetheless just another thing making this day for him.

McKay: Now, let's see if I can... Oh, why do they have to make these things so small? Look, I need to be the one on the surface saving the poor bastard stuck down here, not actually be the poor bastard stuck down here! By the time Zelenka comes up with a plan, I'll have died of old age!

McKay is clearly frustrated and we can hear the anguish in his tone. We may note that he once more uses the word "Look" when he is making his case, even though there is no one around to hear him (that he knows of), again reminding us of the fact that he has said this word to Sheppard so many times in so many intense situations that Sheppard having developed an observable Pavlovian reaction to the command makes sense. Although McKay looks heavenward as he says these things and one could easily come to the conclusion that he was talking to God, that he was praying here for any and every supernatural force that might hear his plea, and the situation certainly might call for it, McKay has never seemed like a religious man.

What is interesting, however, is that the title seems to be in reference (among other things) to two songs in particular, and one of them is the hymn Amazing Grace. There are several points of connection in the episode to the hymn (e.g., whose composer had been stationed on a ship called the Pegasus) but the fact that he says this ("I need to... not actually be the poor bastard") precisely the moment before he hears the sound of the sea creature that is going to save him for the first time seems more than a little convenient, given also his very recent complaint about not being able to see:

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me I once was lost, but now I'm found Was blind, but now I see

Regardless, this is when McKay makes first contact with the adolescent giant sea creature native to the planet in possession of psychic powers and an impressively big dong that he later comes to call by the name Sam. Now, McKay himself thinks that it is the radio transmitter that calls the creature to his location but like we have noted in connection with the past several episodes, McKay himself seems to have some latent psychic powers (especially of the telepathic variety) compliment of his ATA gene that are only fully realized when his full genetic potential is unleashed in Tao of Rodney (S03E14). However, he seems to be in enough mental anguish as he thinks that he is rushing toward his untimely death here that it is entirely possible the teenage fish might have been drawn to him through some kind of psychic resonance rather than just the radio.

What ever the attraction, McKay falls suddenly quiet and his eyes dart quickly from side to side as he hears the sound of something huge outside of the jumper, very close by. The shift in his mood from anguish to terror is so immediate that it is easy to entirely brush past what he was saying just before, which is that he was expecting Zelenka to be the one coming up with the plan to save him. He was trusting Zelenka, with whom he had been in radio contact, to be the one working on saving him when in fact it seemed to be Sheppard who had the ideas on how to get him out.

And it is not that he lacks faith in Sheppard's abilities, ingenuity or his desire to save him. It is not faith in Sheppard that he lacks but belief that he is worth saving, that he actually means enough to Sheppard for him to make the effort to save him (in fact, up until Miller's Crossing (S04E09) McKay has no idea how much he means to Sheppard and that is because Sheppard purposefully keeps it from him, figuring that as long as McKay does not know how much he cares, his love maybe won't get him killed), and it is precisely for this reason that he needs to be thoroughly convinced otherwise so as not to let his poor self-esteem and belief that he is fundamentally unlovable let him get himself killed. That is the actual plot of the episode.

McKay: Hello? Are you angry, or are you hungry? 'Cause I am pretty sure that this thing is an instant case of indigestion, you know? It's the transmitter! It must be broadcasting at a, at a frequency you can hear!

And so McKay makes contact, and he immediately starts having a conversation with his new friend. He is freaked out enough that he puts his device away and stands up as though he might better be able to calm down this wild animal that way, and we see him do his own self-soothing movement with his thumb as he tries to calm himself down.

What we might note is that he immediately tries to empathize with the alien life form, tries to figure out what it might want or be in need of, and we see him arrive at the conclusion that it must be annoyed by the frequency emitted by the transmitter. Now, from everything we know, it had been the intention of the psychic fish to help him out from the get-go but it is a feature of McKay's poor self-esteem that the only conclusion he can arrive is that he must be annoying this creature somehow. That it has to be wanting to get rid of him. But let us just make note of the fact that even though McKay concludes that it has to be the transmitter that is drawing the creature to the jumper, that does not mean that he is correct about the motivations of the fish to come to him (and to him specifically, not just to the jumper). There is no reason for the viewer to take everything McKay says as the unfiltered truth.

McKay: Poor little fella. Poor little fella. I'm, I'm sorry if I'm bugging you but, but I kinda need to leave this thing on for a bit, you know? Maybe you could, tell my friends where I am? You could, could you do that, huh? Could you go for help, huh? Could you do that? What am I doing? Well, I'm treating an alien whale like Lassie!

Even though the creature outside sounds huge, McKay attempts to soothe it by calling it a poor little fella. He even admits himself that he is trying to deal with the creature as though it were a dog, calling it Lassie, every little boy's (at least, in his age group) dream dog with a Scottish name. We may recall that according to Letters from Pegasus (S01E17), McKay had a dog that he loved as a child that had run away (or something worse, as he did recall that his father had refused to pay for a license for it), and it is entirely within the realm of possibility that he too had given his own dog a Scottish name. Lassie would have been on the television when he was a child, and it is the kind of show that he might have taken solace in given the state of his own childhood environment. His heart had been broken by losing the dog and he had hence convinced himself that he preferred cats who love his company and wait him to come home. It is also not just the love of a boy for a dog that might have appealed to him watching the show but also the close friendship between Jeff and Porky, which is once more not unlike the dynamic we find between McKay and Sheppard. Note also that Lassie was a a Border Collie, a breed of Scottish or Welsh sheep dogs -- shepherds.

Relevant here is that McKay addresses the sea creature directly, he engages the thing in actual dialogue. And what is more, McKay asks it for help. McKay asks it to tell his friends where he is and that is precisely what the fish does. The psychic sea creature is what helps Sheppard find him. It is clearly sentient and it does not wish him ill.

The jumper shakes once as the alien fish first comes near it, and it could be that it is caused by the thing swimming too close by the jumper not realizing that just sweeping by so close would cause the jumper to rattle so badly, but this is the only time that the sea creature even remotely seems to present any kind of a danger to McKay. From everything we know, the fish tries to save him and from what we learn later on in Echoes (S03E12), these creatures had somewhat of a symbiotic relationship with the Ancients since the fish had needed the Ancients to save them from the sun and the Ancients had needed the fish to tell them when it was time to do that. There was mutual benefit to keeping the other species alive and around, and this fish seems to have made the same decision regarding McKay now -- and we may note that McKay does have the Ancient gene activated in him, something these fish have not encountered for 10,000 years and which may seem more than a little curious to them.

McKay: Look, OK, if you're not gonna help, then just swim on by!Swim... Maybe the jumper can swim! OK. Cockpit is inaccessible. But most of the control conduits run back here, so if you were really meant to be submersible, then your drive pods should function underwater too, hmm? Which means I can fly you from back here -- well, not fly, but I can surface. And even if I get close to the surface, then the emergency transmitter won't have to penetrate so much ocean. OK! Now we're getting somewhere!

Here we may note that the moment McKay has an idea, the moment he comes up with something to occupy his thoughts that he can focus working on, he no longer harbours any fear or trepidation. It is as though he completely forgets that he is even meant to be afraid and as long as his mind has this occupation, he does not have to acknowledge the terror, the anguish, or anything else that might distract him from doing what needs to be done, focusing only on the implementation of his plan. His ability to do this, to shut everything else out so that he can focus on completing a task very likely results from his childhood environment, and although it may make him very good to have around in a crisis, it has come at a price for him personally. We may also note that, although he now returns to talking to the jumper instead of the giant sea creature, McKay gives the fish an alternative here: if you are not going to help, swim on by. The fish does not swim on by because it does want to help, and hence sticks around.

Continued in Pt. 8

#stargate atlantis #john sheppard #sga #sga meta #sheppard is bi #rodney mckay #rodney is gay #mcshep #ep. grace under pressure #ep. tao of rodney #ep. letters from pegasus #ep. echoes #ep. miller's crossing

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dr-futbol-blog · 4 days ago

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Grace Under Pressure, Pt. 8

And so we finally get to see the very special guest star of the episode and while Samantha Carter does not actually feature in the story, this is still technically a cross-over episode between the two series. There are both production technical reasons for the guest appearance -- potentially driving audience from the original show that was grinding down to the newer, more vital spin-off that was meant to take over the mantle of the franchise -- but also various in-character reasons for featuring her specifically here. Because the character of McKay had been originally introduced as a foil for Carter, there is an undeniable importance in her character to what McKay has come to be and this is also why, even though McKay is not actually dealing with Carter here, the way he conducts himself around the very concept of her is illuminating. And as regards the alternative reality where they had been married, it may not be coincidental that it is just as he complains about his eyes that she finally makes an appearance.

McKay: Oh, this little keyboard is killing me! All starting to blur together. I need a new set of eyes. "Carter": Let me take a look.

So, the first thing we need to talk about is the timing of her arrival on the scene. McKay had knocked his head over an hour, possibly up to three hours previously. Carter makes an appearance not immediately following the fish that he would later name "Sam" having discovered him but immediately following the appearance of this fish having given him the idea to try to use up the remaining power of the jumper in surfacing it instead of waiting for the rescue party. The fish had inadvertently given McKay the idea, and because this was potentially a very bad, very dangerous idea that jeopardized the rescue efforts currently underway, something or someone decided that McKay needed to be kept from implementing this plan.

And the question, the 10.000 dollar question of this episode is what or who Carter actually is. The answer to this is not as straightforward as people are used to thinking because the answers we are given, what the characters themselves belief and how they interpret events, are not always the truth and definitely not the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We are told that McKay is concussed and hallucinating, and maybe he is. But the timing here is more than a little suspect.

McKay: Did I just...? "Carter": Yes, you did. McKay: Sam? "Carter": Don't worry, Rodney. We're gonna get you outta here.

McKay does not finish his sentence but likely he was going to say "Did I just hear someone speaking?" or "Did I just hear Samantha Carter?" Regardless, she seems much more tangible than a mere hallucination. There are two things we may note right off the bat: she is dressed in pink pleather, which I will discuss in more detail shortly, and she seems to have come specifically to help him. It is because she has come to help him that she/he/it has taken on this particular visage, and although she is played by the actress for Samantha Carter, we should note that she is never actually Samantha Carter, she merely looks like her.

In fact, the creature come to help McKay here seems to contain aspects of a minimum of two but possibly up to six entities who want to make sure that McKay gets out of here alive. The fact that McKay calls her "Sam" which, as we recall, is the name he gives the fish later on is also a little strange given how we have not heard him call her that to her face previously (nor has Carter called him "Rodney" before). McKay has referred to her as "Major," "Major Carter" and "dumb blonde" but even in spite of Carter kissing his cheek, they were not on first name basis. But we may also note that every time that McKay has seen Carter, she has been in fatigues and the fact that she appears now in civilian clothes may be for a reason. What ever this entity is, it is trying to put McKay at ease, and hence projecting an image that McKay would want to call Sam instead of Major Carter may be by design. We may also make record of the following things: he does not look happy to see her, he certainly does not look like a man seeing the woman he loves and he does not look like he is turned on by what he sees. He looks bewildered and confused.

McKay: How did you...? How-how are you...? "Carter": It's good to see you too, McKay. McKay: Oh, I have lost it. I have completely lost it. "Carter": No you haven't.

It is because McKay is so self-aware and has been in therapy for such a long time, has actual tools for dealing with his issues, that being faced with what seems like a fully fledged hallucination concerns him greatly. We may note that this Carter does not behave precisely the way we might expect the real Carter to behave, and people are going to chalk that up for this being McKay's mental representation of her. But even though it is obvious that Carter is somehow being drawn from and manifested from McKay's mind, we may note that there is something childlike about her behaviour here and not just in the way she is dressed in bubble gum pink. And where it would be easy to blame the infantilism on McKay's special brand of misogyny, there may be another explanation (or two) for it.

McKay: You're not real. You are not real. You are not real. "Carter": Of course I'm not real. McKay: I'm sorry? "Carter": I'm three million light years away with problems of my own. McKay: Yeah, well, so what are you doing here? "Carter": You're hallucinating. McKay: Oh, and how am I doing that, hmm? Oh, right. Is it that bad?

So, here "Carter" tells McKay that she is not real, which is fair enough. Samantha Carter is not sitting in a jumper with Rodney McKay on their way to the bottom of the ocean. That much is true. She also tells McKay that the real Samantha Carter is three million light years away and even adds that she has problems of her own, which may or may not be something that McKay can acknowledge about her (and I would wager that it is not something McKay can acknowledge on the regular, because McKay does not really see her as a fully-fledged person enough that even his subconscious mind would make that kind of an inference about her life; he simply does not care to know her on that level).

But McKay's hallucination then tells him that he is hallucinating, and most people are going to take this at face value. McKay has been struck upon the head, he is suffering from a concussion, he has a tendency to dissociate, so of course he is hallucinating. But we may note that "Carter" does not actually say that McKay hallucinating her is caused by his head wound, she merely implies it, she lets him think that this is the case by gesturing at her own head as though to imply his head wound as the culprit. But let us be clear about this point: the fact that something is a hallucination, that he is seeing something that is not real, is not the same thing as it being necessarily his mind that is creating it, or that it is simply his mind creating it from his subconscious mind as the result of a head trauma. McKay is hallucinating something that looks like Carter. The reason why he is hallucinating her is a more complicated question.

Now, there are three main explanations for what is happening here and McKay hallucinating her due to his head trauma and history of mental health issues is but one of them. We have seen McKay dissociate previously so there is somewhat of a precedent for this. However, he has not hallucinated fully formed personalities of people he actually knows previously and we only have one other indication of this happening later on. When McKay thinks that his own negligence leads to the death of his best friend in Sunday (S03E17), he hallucinates Beckett. That is the only other time this happens and what McKay is going through in that moment is so much worse than what has happened to him here. An argument can be made that his actual mental health is teetering on the edge during that time but here, he is suffering from a simple head trauma and there are other things that might explain what is creating Carter for him to see. Ergo, we cannot take the later scene as necessary confirmation that this is something he is wont to do. It is possible but not even the most likely explanation.

"Carter": The way I see it, you're scared. You're a little panicked, you're a lot lonely. You knew you could use some help, so your subconscious is manifesting the one person you know is smarter than you. McKay: Oh, I don't think so! "Carter": Oh, don't start with me, McKay!

This is important, and the fact that Carter is wearing clothing that we have never seen her wear on SG-1 ever before and that McKay, who as mentioned, has only ever seen her in her fatigues has also never seen her wear is relevant here because what Carter is wearing is the kind of get-up that a girl in her late teens might have worn in the 1990s. This is not a thing that an adult woman would wear, and it is not something that an adult woman would have worn in the early aughts, and the audience is being lead to interpret this as being some kind of a sex kitten fantasy for McKay because he is obviously such a sexist horn dog and what not. But let me just point out the fact that in spite of what "Carter" tells him here, Carter is not actually "the one person" McKay knows is smarter than him (and, in fact, he explicitly denies that she is later on). And the other person who not only is smarter than him but also seems to be smarter than Carter is someone who probably not just wore pink pleather jackets in the early 90s when McKay had last been in her life, but who seems to still be wearing pink jackets to this goddamn day as a grown woman because it is like her favourite color or something:

McKay has literally never seen Carter wear pink but it is not just something that pretty obviously would have been Jeannie's favourite color as a teen (and not just pink but like this exact shade of pink and fuschia), it is still her favourite colour as an adult. It is a colour that McKay has seen his sister wear probably often enough that his mind associates her with the colour.

And I will just underscore this again: There is not just a case to be made for Jeannie to be smarter than McKay, there is a case to be made for her to be smarter than Samantha Carter. "Carter" says "your subconscious is manifesting the one person you know is smarter than you" but she does not actually say that this one person is Samantha Carter. And although his subconscious seems to be manifesting one person, it does not mean like this one person is actually so much one fully fledged person as it is an amalgamation of people that McKay considers both smart and as people who might want him to survive, given how he already seemed to be projecting his sister speaking to him earlier before he started hallucinating. This thing is a composite of his mind that consists at the very least of his sister and Samantha Carter but that is not necessarily limited to the two of them. But the bubble gum pink is a dead give-away that his little sister, specifically as he knew her when she was a teenager, makes up a part of her, even if this is long before we actually ever see Jeannie wear the pink.

McKay: You are very clever. I will even give you brilliant; but there is brilliant, and then there's me. "Carter": Every time we've worked together, you've been wrong, and I've been right. McKay: Even if that were true -- and no-one is saying that it is -- the fact that you could assert that...

Although during their initial meeting, McKay likely genuinely thought that he had a better theoretical understanding of the stargate than Carter, whom McKay had every reason of seeing as just another grunt given that he had been contracting for the military for long enough to know that even if the Air Force had the means to hire the best and the brightest, they did not hire the best and the brightest out of the Air Force Academy. He was brought into the project (to figure out how to save the resident alien Teal'c from the local memory of the gate, and the reason he had actually been brought in had been to act as the bad guy by the NID to convince them that there was no way of saving him and that they should just resume normal gate activity) to fix up something that Carter had been unable to to fix, to essentially clear up her mess as far as he had understood it. Although McKay had no reason to think that Carter was particularly stupid -- any more so than he thinks most people are stupid compared to him -- he had no reason to think she was anything special either, upon first encountering her.

Now, it did not take him very long at all to notice that she is exceptionally bright and him calling her a dumb blonde to her face -- that was entirely his poor self-esteem talking, that was a defensive reaction to encountering someone that he actually found intellectually intimidating, and that had not been not a common occurrence to McKay. While McKay very likely had to fight his way through Academia due to his family background, meeting someone that made him feel stupid and who was a woman to boot, that was something that had not happened to him since his childhood and had reminded him not only of his sister (and what Carter tells him here, Jeannie might just as well have told him the same thing), but also of his mother. Whether he ever admitted it to himself or not, Carter reminded him of his mother in ways that made him very uncomfortable, which is why we see McKay lash out at her so strongly.

And here, we see an iteration of his original reaction to Carter play out again. He is very much acting like a child toward her, and this is both because Carter reminds him or his mother and because she is here, dressed up in bubble gum pink, also acting like his little sister. They are both acting like children, and this is not just because she is manifested from McKay's own mind. The way McKay is responding to her is as though she really was here, his mind is reacting to her like she was real, which again suggests that while she is created from his mind, she is not just a hallucination. She is something more than that. He is responding to her like she really was Carter even when he recognizes that it is not possible that Carter was actually there with him. His senses are confused, and they are confused in a way that is not explained by his concussion alone. And it is telling that it is the idea that she is smarter than him that is making him feel defensive, not the idea that he is currently hurtling toward his death and might be in need of help.

"Carter": Why else would I be here? McKay: I don't know! Maybe one last romp before I die. "Carter": One last romp? Please, we never... McKay: OK, one first romp, but it's romping that comes to mind, not your brains, blondie. Now, you've gotta admit, I am a handsome man standing-- "Carter": You're essentially arguing with yourself. You realise that, right? Your mind is creating me. What? McKay: What else am I hallucinating?

This is again one of those moments that make some people think that McKay a) is interested in women and b) would like to have sex with this woman in particular, when that is not what is communicated here. I use the word "interested" here because even the staunchest supporters of the idea of his heterosexuality cannot in good conscience claim that what he expresses here is his liking of women, because Rodney McKay does not like women. Wanting women and liking women are two very different things, and you have to twist his character pretty damn far from what we see on screen to claim that he likes women. But regardless, he is the one who mentions "romping" her here, which has to mean that he has been thinking about it, yes? Only, he is not saying that he wants to have sex with her, he is suggesting that her motivation for having come to him is that she wants to have sex with him. The maintext reading is that because he cannot admit that he would need her for her brains, therefore he can only admit to wanting her for her body. This is a classic psychological defense mechanism, the exclusion of unacceptable desires and ideas from consciousness through repression.

Except, the way he understands what is happening is that his subconscious mind had manifested her precisely because he needed her brains and because due to his poor self-esteem he refuses to admit that he could use her brains here, he is deflecting this into a crass comment about liking her for her body better than her mind which is pretty much the polar opposite of what he actually thinks about her. To Rodney McKay, Samantha Carter is one of the most brilliant minds he has ever met and that is a problem. The fact that her brilliant mind, one that he fears in his heart of hearts is even more brilliant than his own, comes in a package that most men -- up to and including men that McKay admires and wants -- want in ways that they could never want him is a huge problem for him. Because if there is one thing he has always had going for him, it is his own brain. It is his mind. He has always been able to take solace in the fact that even though there are good-looking, sexy, charming jocks out there, at least they are not brilliant minds like he is.

This very same thing had been why meeting Sheppard had been so goddamn difficult for him -- because the man had been such a total package starting from his superman genes (but thankfully it had turned out that the man was at least an utter geek underneath it all, and had the poor taste to actually like McKay, so he could live with him; Carter even had the good taste to not like McKay, which made her even more of a perfect package). Given that Carter was even tall and butch, the only thing she was lacking, as far as he was concerned, was a dick. Otherwise Carter was like the perfect being, and she made him feel small. And not just small in the sense of making him feel like a little boy but also small in the sense of making him feel petty, small on the inside. And it is not easy to be around people like that. It is not easy to be in front of someone that reminds you of your every flaw just by existing.

Falling in love with him, McKay had learned how to deal with being around John Sheppard. Having gotten to know him so intimately he had come to learn that Sheppard was far from perfect, and that just made him love him more. But he had never had the chance of getting to know Carter enough to learn that she is not perfect like that either, and that has nothing whatsoever to do with McKay wanting to "romp" her. The whole thing about the romping is not about him wanting to have sex with her but is about him projecting his self-esteem issues on her, making it sound like she wants him for his body just so he does not have to admit the truth of it: he needs her for her brain (and only for her brain). Especially as it is right now, he needs her for her brain. But that is a bitter pill for him to swallow, to admit that even to himself. And yet, that is what he is forced to admit to himself here. For one, they have never had sex like that was ever in any doubt. Second, much as he would like people to think that he was a handsome man that they want to have sex with, he knows that this is just not true, not with most people.

People need him for his brains, and he hopes that if he is able to use his brains to provide them with enough acts of service, they might tolerate him to a sufficient decree to want to keep him around, maybe even come to love him. But how ever much he might wish for it, he is not Samantha Carter, he is not someone that people love just for existing. That is not who he is and that is not his life. He does not know Carter enough to recognize that she actually has those problems of her own, and he hates her. He hates her for getting to live life on "easy mode," as he sees it, of having everything handed to her on a silver platter. McKay hates Samantha Carter, and most of all he hates the way that his subconscious mind seems to think that he needs her now to save his life because he is not smart enough to think his own way out of this.

This whole thing is so far from being about what makes his dick wet that it would be hilarious if it was not so damn sad. But as mentioned before, McKay is extremely self-aware. And just as soon as he admits to himself that what this is on his part is denial, he has to stop to have a think about what all else he might be in denial of. He has zero need to convince himself that he is interested in having sex with a woman but he most definitely might want to lie to himself about many other things, and he wishes that he was able to lie to himself but he is both too intelligent and knows himself too well to be able to do that effectively.

"Carter": What do you mean? McKay: Well, if you're not real, what is? I mean, how-how-how do I tell the difference? How do I know that any of these readings I've been taking are correct? "Carter": You're not that far gone. McKay: No-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no. I, I am unconscious in the Infirmary. I-I'm fine...

Note "Carter's" confusion here. Although she is created from McKay's mind, she is not just a facet of McKay's subconscious mind but very much seems to be an entity that is interacting with him. This is not McKay having a conversation with himself, with his own mind. This is McKay in actual dialogue with someone or something outside of himself. She also has to try to convince him of the fact that although he is not actually talking with Samantha Carter, that she is actually there and that she is there to help him out with this. She is trying to convince him that he is not actually having a psychotic episode here, he is merely having a strange experience and as soon as he accepts this as reality, they can start working on saving his life. She might be created from his mind but it is rather obvious that she is not the creation of his mind, there is a difference.

McKay: ...and this is just a-a-a post-traumatic nightmare, hmm? So come on, wake up, wake up, wake up. Ooh! Ooh! "Carter": No, no, no -- see, you really are in the back of a sinking jumper. Your readings are correct. You knew you could use some help, and you've got a pretty bad concussion, so...

As discussed previously, McKay is the comic sidekick character, the clown with the broken heart who may be crying internally but who is seen as a bumbling fool by the other characters. Here, we see McKay strike himself as he wishes that this will be enough to wake him up from what he is hoping is just a nightmare, hoping that it will be enough to jolt him out of this nightmare. There are a few things that we need to discuss here. The first time that we learn about McKay's childhood, that he thinks his parents hated each other and took it out on him, was when he was trying to bond with Carter after almost having gotten her electrocuted and sitting by her in the infirmary, oversharing details about his own history in an attempt at gaining a sympathetic response from her. The fact that it happened with her is largely coincidental to this.

What is important is this: Carter reminds him of his mother and this is not only because she is intelligent and seems to resent him just as he believes his own mother resented him, but also because she is blonde and has short hair. It has been implied that McKay's mother died from a protracted illness, likely cancer, and may have lost her blonde hair from chemotherapy along the way, which is also another reason why she and her military cut might remind him of his mother. What is more, we saw McKay recoil from Allina striking Sanir, another woman, right in front of him in The Brotherhood (S01E16) suggesting that this is something that he had witnessed as a child, having been unable to protect his mother from having suffered the same from his father (or, given that it was a woman that McKay had thought of as intelligent striking another woman, it might even have reminded him of his mother striking his sister; what ever it was, him recoiling from it suggested that there had been physical violence in his childhood environment).

What is interesting is that McKay's reaction to the thought of him having a post-traumatic nightmare is for him to strike himself in the face hard. Something about finding himself standing in front of Carter makes him feel like striking himself in the face is the proper response, and this is all around pretty worrisome. It is played for comedy again, but it is more than a little concerning. It is also very likely not the first time that he has experienced being struck in this way. The way he holds his face, how miserable he looks, he has been right here before. This is also another indication that he does have a pretty high pain tolerance for when he is actually in pain and not just milking it looking for attention. We may also note that he begins stuttering pretty badly here, further reinforcing the idea that he is regressing back to his childhood.

McKay: So -- here you are. "Carter": Here I am. McKay: I suppose that's comforting... in a ... terrified for my mental health kind of way. "Carter": Why don't you show me what you've done so far? McKay: Huh, right.

And so McKay admits not only that the thought that she is there to help him is comforting but also that there is a real possibility that his long history of mental health problems is actually contributing to his current predicament more than a little. He certainly was not wrong to entertain the doubt that he might be undergoing a full psychotic episode and that he is not able to trust his grasp of reality being firm enough to be able to tell what is real and what is not real anymore. But what is real curious is this: as McKay approaches here here not because is so attracted to her that he is simply drawn to get close to her but because he trying to maintain some kind of a grasp on reality and by closing in on her is actually trying to keep her in focus, is trying to make her the focal point of his attention so as to keep from falling completely apart by the experience. And yet, he is clearly making her or what ever she is uncomfortable by getting so close to her here.

If she was just a figment of his imagination, if she was just his subconscious mind manifesting in the form of Samantha Carter, that should not be happening. Him acting so creepy that he is creeping the figment of his own imagination out is unlikely. No, this is evidence of the fact that what ever is using the figure of Samantha Carter that they are pulling from McKay's mind is not just a hallucination, and this is confirmed by her behaviour here. This is an actual entity that has just taken on the appearance of Samantha Carter and the fact that McKay is getting too close to her, is focusing on her too intensely here as to make her uncomfortable. And that is interesting. And his focus is not due to attraction because he is looking at neither her body nor her mouth here. And yet what ever she is, Carter is made uncomfortable by his focus because he is clearly trying to figure her out, he is trying to figure out exactly what he is dealing with here, and she would rather he not do that too closely.

Continued in Pt. 9

#stargate atlantis #john sheppard #sga #sheppard is bi #rodney mckay #rodney is gay #mcshep #sga meta #ep. grace under pressure #ep. echoes #ep. sunday #ep. the brotherhood #ep. mckay and mrs miller

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